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Quote:
Originally Posted by convergent View Post
I am just getting going with Omnifocus and got totally confused because I did the following:

I setup Folders for different work areas as such:

DayJobCompany
SmallBizCompany1
SmallBizCompany2
ProfessionalDevelopment
FamilyStuff
HomeImprovements
That sounds right.

Quote:
Then I used Inbox to create a ton of random ToDos that I dragged and dropped into these different Folders. I then dragged some of the ones that related under each other into projects.

I then proceeded to try and assign a Context to each one and became quite frustrated in trying to do it. Now I just figured out that all these things I dragged over there that don't have anything beneath them are "single actions", but the way I did it they were Projects with no actions... thus no context can be applied. I kept thinking I was doing it with the Inspector, but was assigning a "Default Context".

So how to convert all these Projects to Actions? I have concluded that it can't be done as long as they are beneath a Folder. Maybe I'm wrong, but doesn't seem like it.
I'm not so sure that you want to. Probably some are actions, some are projects. Without hearing some idea of what they are, it's hard to tell. Are some of them related and working towards accomplishing one of them that has some marked ending/goal? Then that one should be a project and the others should be actions underneath the project.

Projects can be converted to actions by, in the sidebar, dragging and dropping them into the project (or single action list) to which they belong.

Quote:
So I discovered the Single Action List. Great, I created one in each of my folders... seems kind of redundant to me since its kind of the same thing as a Folder. So then I think, can I drag a real Project with subordinate Actions into the Single Action List? Yes, I can. So what is the point of this. The Single Action List, isn't really a Single Action List if it can contain Projects, right? The Single Action List seems to be what I really wanted when I picked a Folder. It would seem to me that Folder is kind of useless unless you never want a Single Action in there and I'm not sure how you'd know that.

Off to convert all my Folders to Single Action Lists... er, I mean replace them with Single Action Lists.

Please let me know if I'm missing something here.
I have folders, similar to yours. Most of my folders DO have a single action list, because most of my areas of responsibilities have some things that ARE just single actions.

But all of my folders also have many, various projects, and also some have a few single action lists and other folders which also contain projects and single action lists.

An Example:

Folder-Home (which contains the following folders)
Folder-Health (which contains a couple single action lists and a couple projects)
Folder-Pets (which contains a couple single action lists and a dog training project)
Folder-Home Environment (which contains a single action list--chores--and a couple cleaning-type projects)
Folder-Finances (which contains a single action list and a couple projects)
Folder-My misc. (which contains a single action list and many little hobby/interest type projects)

I use the single action list vs. project distinction in a fairly pure GTD way, the way I understand it, in that single action lists don't have a completion, but projects do. As far as OF is concerned, they're the same (the way I understand it) except for the icon (which you can change in the inspector) and the default styling (SAL items are blue...which I always change back to black).

Something you asked about being 'under' a folder...you can change the hierarchical structure in the sidebar using Edit>Outlining...there are various choices there.


Keep asking questions.